The University of Regina's women's basketball team qualified for the 2016 CIS Championship with a 65-59 win over MacEwan on Friday night in a Canada West semifinal at the Physical Activity Complex on the University of Saskatchewan campus.

The Cougars never trailed after going on a 20-4 run in the third quarter which turned a two-point lead for MacEwan into a commanding 14-point advantage for Regina. MacEwan responded with a 14-4 run of its own to get to within four points early in the fourth, but the Cougars were able to pull away down the stretch by holding the Griffins to only three points over a six-minute span in the final quarter.

"I was a little disappointed in our first half. I didn't think we played particularly well, especially on the offensive side of things," Cougars head coach Dave Taylor said. "But I liked how we came out in the second half and made some key stops when we needed to. MacEwan was a bit of an unknown for us, and now we'll prepare for a team that we'll definitely have some familiarity with."

The victory ensures the Cougars will scoop up one of Canada West's two automatic berths to the national tournament, which will be hosted next weekend by the University of New Brunswick. It also sends them to Saturday night's conference championship game, where they'll take on either Alberta or host Saskatchewan as the Cougars look for their third Canada West title in program history.

All five starters were key in the win for the Cougars on Friday, with Charlotte Kot and Katie Polischuk leading the way with 15 points each. Alyssia Kajati was just behind them with 14 points and added nine rebounds to fall just short of a double-double, while Kehlsie Crone had nine points and four assists and Sidney Dobner finished with six points, five assists, and a team-leading 10 rebounds.

Sara Hubenig led the Cougars off the bench with seven rebounds in 18 minutes played.

Megan Wood led MacEwan with a game-high 21 points. Kendall Lydon added 13 points, while Kelly Fagan had 10 points and led all players with 12 rebounds to collect the game's lone double-double. MacEwan will now face the loser of the Alberta/Saskatchewan semifinal in the third-place game on Saturday night.

Friday's game started out tentatively, with both teams having trouble scoring as they combined for only 20 points in the first quarter. The offences starting churning in the second quarter, though, with MacEwan scoring 18 points to Regina's 16 to go into halftime trailing the Cougars by a slim 28-26 margin.

And both offences kicked it up a notch in the third quarter, starting with Regina's big run that started just after Wood drilled a triple for MacEwan two minutes in. That gave the Griffins a 32-30 lead, but they only scored four points over the next five minutes while six different Cougars scored over that span as part of the 20-4 run that put the Cougars up by a 50-36 count.

MacEwan's reply came in the form of an 11-2 run that brought the Griffins back to within four after another Wood three-pointer, but the Cougars clamped down on the defensive end the rest of the way. They slowly built the lead back into double digits, as five consecutive points including a big three-pointer by Polischuk put Regina up 65-55 with just over two minutes to go.

NOTES: The Cougars will compete in the CIS Championship next weekend for the 17th time in program history as they return to the eight-team tournament for the first time since 2013.